Chapter V

Dr. Lommel closed the door of the ward behind him and started down the corridor, but at the first step he stopped suddenly with a terrible sinking of the heart. Victor was coming toward him, but alone, and with a white face.

"Victor," Jean cried, in a voice intense but low, "what has happened? Where is Pierre?"

"There has been an accident," Victor returned. "A bridge broke under his train."

"But you do not know--" began Lommel.

"Yes," the other interrupted; "M. de Brue, who was on the train and escaped with a broken arm, was in the same compartment with Pierre. He rode through on the engine that came in for help. Pierre had told him I was to meet him, and so when M. de Brue saw me he stopped to say that the soldier was struck on the chest and killed instantly."

Dr. Lommel stood regarding his companion with terror and compassion in his look.

"_O mon Dieu!_" he said; "poor Mère Marchette!"

"It will kill her," Victor responded.

"That is nothing," was the doctor's reply. "It is not death, but the agony she will suffer."

At that moment the nurse came out of the ward and hurried down the corridor to join them.

"M. le Docteur," she said, "I beg your pardon, but the excitement of Mère Marchette is so great that I venture to suggest that her grandson hurry."

She glanced around as she spoke, and saw that he was not there. An exclamation rose to her lips; the doctor checked her by a glance.

"Go back to Mère Marchette," said he, "and say that I am cautioning Pierre-- Stay, I will go myself. Wait here, Victor."

He went back into the ward and passed down between the cots, from which eyes that the indifference of illness scarcely left human, watched him with faint curiosity. Mère Marchette was sitting up in bed, trembling with eagerness and excitement. All the reserve which she had maintained for weeks had been swept aside. The moment for which she had kept herself alive had come at last, and there was no longer any need to save her energy. Her eyes shone, a feverish glow was on her cheek, even her withered lips had taken on for the moment a wan and ghostly red. It seemed to the doctor, as he looked at her, as if all the vitality which remained in her feeble frame was being expended in a last quick fire.

"Ah," he said, "I have been warning Pierre to be calm, when it is you to whom I should speak. Come, it will take only a moment, but I must give you treatment before I can let you see him."

As he spoke he put his forefinger up to her forehead with a gesture he always used in hypnotizing her. Mère Marchette struggled a moment as if she could not yield to anything which delayed her reunion with Pierre; then she sank into a hypnotic sleep. The doctor leaned forward and spoke with an emphasis which he had never before used with his patient.

"When you awake," he said, "you will see Pierre; the person I shall bring to you is your grandson. Remember," he repeated, "it is Pierre who will come in with me."

He breathed on her eyelids in the usual method of awaking her.

"Now," he said, "I will bring him, Mère Marchette."

He went back to where Victor and the nurse were awaiting him.

"Victor," he said quickly, "you know the experiment M. Charcot tried yesterday when he made a hypnotized patient believe one person was another; I have told Mère Marchette that you are Pierre. You must take his place; come quickly."

The young man drew back.

"I cannot," he protested.

"You must," Lommel returned, almost fiercely. "Come."